Domus Caedet Arborem
Ever since the great planes were murdered at the end of the gardens,
The city, to me, at night has the look of a spirit brooding crime:
As if the dark houses watching the trees from dark windows
Were simply biding their time.
The city, to me, at night has the look of a spirit brooding crime:
As if the dark houses watching the trees from dark windows
Were simply biding their time.
- Charlotte Mew
So I have decided that I need some structure to this blog, I love poetry but hardly ever think to just get out one of my poetry books and read a couple of poems, so hopefully posting, and thinking about a poem a week will get me back into it.
This week I have decided to start with Charlotte Mew, a little known early 20th century poet, who I discovered in an anthology and piqued my interest with just the first stanza of one of her poems, entitled 'Afternoon Tea' which begins
Please you, excuse me, good five-o'clock people,
I've lost my last hatful of words,
And my heart's in the wood up above the church steeple,
I'd rather have tea with -- the birds.
I feel that is such a lovely wistful image, the rest of the poem is a tad uncharacteristicall sentimental and victorian, but her "last hatful of words" drew me in. Charlotte Mew, was described by Virgina Woolf as 'very good and interesting and unlike anyone else', for Thomas Hardy she was the 'best living woman poet' and when she fell on hard times at the end of her life, several leading poets and authors including Hardy petitioned for her to be granted a civil pension writing:
"As she is a poet, writing poetry of a rare kind, she may not be widely known for many years. We feel that it would be a wise and gracious act, worthy of a great people, to give to this rare spirit the means of doing her work until the work can appraise and reward it."
The world is now starting to be able to appreciate her and she is being gradually rediscovered.
I wanted to post 'On the Road to the Sea', simultaneously tender, possessive and utterly enthralling, i do not usually like 'love' poems as they tend to be rather sappy but this is certainly not that and I find it strikes that chord whereby it feels 'true', however it is too long for a blog post really, so I chose a considerably shorter poem of Mew's. Living in a city, the vision of malevolent houses and tamed gardens killing the wilderness is haunting, especially when if you think about it houses look quite a lot like faces....
Do read 'On the Road to the Sea', if you enjoy her this website has several of her poems, and also had a biography of her life.
